China cuts lending rates, small banks' reserves

---

BEIJING, Sept 15 (Reuters): China's central bank, acting against a background of extreme stress in global financial markets, cut benchmark lending rates by 0.27 percentage point Monday.
The cut lowers the cost of one-year bank loans to 7.20 per cent.
Benchhmark deposit rates remain unchanged with the one-year rate at 4.14 per cent.
The People's Bank of China also cut the reserve requirement for all except the country's five biggest banks and the Postal Savings Bank by 1 percentage point.
It is the first time that the central bank has lowered the proportion of deposits that lenders must hold in reserve since November 1999.
The cut in lending rates takes effect on September 16; the cut in reserve requirements goes into effect on September 25, the bank said.